15 February 2006
Cape Town is to host South Africa's first-ever international book fair in June 2006, in a joint partnership between the Frankfurt Book Fair - the largest in the world - and the Publishers' Association of SA, taking advantage of a strong economy that is encouraging the country's people to buy more books.
An annual event running for four days at the Cape Town International Convention Centre, the fair will showcase leading international and local publishers and is expected to attract thousands of visitors.
"More South Africans are buying more books," Struik Publishers MD Steve Connolly said at a media briefing in Johannesburg on Tuesday.
"In the last couple of years there has been good growth, locally and internationally."
Connolly said the upswing in the local book trade was a result of the country's economic boom, with low interest rates and record growth encouraging South Africans to spend.
A major international event
At the signing of the agreement last year, Frankfurt Book Fair president Volker Neumann expressed his delight at the closure of years of negotiation and said he and his colleagues were committed to what he believes will be a major annual world event.
The Frankfurt Book Fair will provide technical, financial and international marketing support to Cape Town's event.
The largest book fair in the world, Frankfurt had
7 200 exhibitors showing 104 566 new publications to 280 000 people at last year's fair.
"Frankfurt's about business. It brings publishers and buyers into a city or country," said Vanessa Badroodien, director of the Cape Town fair.
Greater government commitment
Badroodien said South Africa also had greater
government commitment to local authors and the publishing industry to thank.
"There are about 12 000 South African authors currently earning royalties from novels, school books and non-fiction," she said.
Last week the South African Department of Arts and Culture, which is helping subsidise the fair, announced it would inject R1-billion over the next three years into public libraries and would invest R100-million in the country's film, television, music, book, publishing and craft sectors.
Authors and awards
The fair will include British historical romance writer Philippa Gregory, Zimbabwean crime writer Alexander McCall Smith, South African storyteller Gcina Mhlope, and other authors and commentators.
The M-Net-Afrika Awards, The Sunday Times' Alan Paton Award for non-fiction and a separate fiction award, and the 25th Noma Award will be presented at the fair.
Central to the Cape Town fair will be a festival involving local schools, libraries and communities with the aim of popularising reading in South Africa, exposing readers to high-profile local and international authors, providing a platform for new voices and finding ways to make books more accessible for all.
It will involve all sectors of the book, cultural and tourism industries, and will draw widely on the enthusiasm and support of the Western Cape community, with additional activities planned in other provinces every two years.
- The Cape Town Book Fair will run from 17 to 20 June 2006. Publishing companies have until 20 February to register their participation.
